Fragments
by jojo.in.shades
Summary: Living through Hermione's eyes.
1. Chapter 1: Bedroom

It's night-time now, and I find myself waking while the others sleep on. Moonlight filters in to draw their silvered silhouettes, and nothing stirs to break the soft echoes of light breathing. It's like a limbo here, I think to myself as I pull up out of bed, it's like feeling a grassy hill in the breeze, and I shiver slightly as I move to the seat at the broad window to pull on a shawl.

I gaze out and nothing moves here either; the weathered stones of the castle hold strong against the endless space beyond. I pull my knees up to my chest and rest my face against the glass, my back against the stone, my skin against the coolness that holds me still. It centres me, calms the remnants of a dream I can hardly remember, and my breathing slows.

I look around again at the people lost in slumber here, and affection overwhelms me. How is it that such strength of emotion can be contained within a human body! These are my companions, my unwitting confidants, my champions and my strength. And I can never tell them! They will never know.

My thoughts turn inward now, and I drift into a maze of pictures and thoughts and impressions churned up by what I dreamt again. What I would give for a single night of sound sleep, and peace! But moments replay freely through my mind, sounds, smells, tastes, faces crowd my mind's eye, and I find myself propelled across the room in a bid to escape them. Oh soaring ecstasy, and blazing despair! The exit leading out to the common room appears here in front of me – no matter, sleep will not come tonight. The heavy door opens on silent hinges, and I slip out.


	2. Chapter 2: Common Room 1

The landing is soft and vast, and when I emerge from the dorms a glorious warmth bathes me head to toe. My face tingles with the thrill of such a caress, and my pace languishes. Softly, gently now, my feet flit across the grainy carpet, bringing me closer to the fireplace that is outlined with the molten radiance of glowing embers. The air here is spiced with the musky trace of parchment and smoke, and I feel my senses dull as I sink onto the hearth. My limbs ache, glad for the release of responsibility. I am so tired; why won't sleep come? Sparks are swept up the chimney as I watch.

Time passes, pauses. As the half-light of the fireplace draws me to a deeper place, the half-dark draws me out of myself. My body, the outer boundary, lies dormant in the wake of my very soul bared. This must be the moment of truth, the essence of life, the essential core of existence; how can I go back?

My thoughts are drawn to earlier moments of the day, an emergent realisation of temporality. Listening to others chatter about inanities. Knowing I could never chatter as others do. Instead I listen, I have become the listener. And as such, found myself in a moment of crystal clarity. That I do and will always posses knowledge without a means to influence, to change. Oh! The true gaps between people are far too great for me to bridge.

A soft whisper of cloth from behind startles me from my daze; suddenly, my senses ablaze with fierce accuracy. He is there. I can feel his eyes cover my skin. I can hear his breath catch even as mine does. I can sense him close, so close, and I can feel his presence crush the space between us. I know of his smell. I know of his thoughts. It is him and no other, and I am afraid to turn around.


	3. Chapter 3: Common Room 2

He is there still, standing somewhere close behind me. I know it, and I stand paralysed with possibility. Time passes like melting treacle until I'm convinced it's been minutes or days or centuries that we've stood thus. I want to scream at him, speak! Move me! Touch me! Reach me! But I cannot speak, I cannot turn, and I cannot...

I shake with yearning, I'm drowning in waves of crimson self-loathing crouched there on the hearth by the fire. My hands are cold. Every part of me aches, and I wish so much I could sleep without ever waking! But then I feel a light touch brush the hair off my neck, I feelwarmth as a hand cups my face and leans me back into a broad embrace. My back arches, head spins. My breathing syncs with this other heartbeat that rumbles through and envelops me. I surface. I feel, I rest in the safety offered, and I can let go at last.

Seconds or years later, my eyes open, and I remember where I am. And the first thing they register is another pair only a handspan away! How have I turned around to rest my head against the crook of his shoulder? Close, so close... I feel the flutter of his soft breath against my eyelashes, and I pull away with a start. Stupid girl! I whip my heart to pieces. Presumptuous brat! How can you possibly expect to mend your heart once you've given it reign to beat!

I withdraw quickly, I find my feet, I need to get out of here now! My hands claw at the air, I throw myself away. My feet misjudge the ground, I lurch. I cry, I turn to run again,

... and I am pulled back until I am kneeling by the hearth again, looking into his eyes again. Molten amber overwhelms me, I am drowning in the sparkling depths of this marvelous creature. The screaming in my head leaves a gentle silence, breath returns, pulse slows, weight shifts to allow hope. As great the terrified despair from before, so great the peace that comes like a balm. And I am still looking.

More time passes, or perhaps even none. We stretch by the fireplace like kittens. Hands dance on skin and breath bonds as senses learn this other and inscribe to deepest memory. 'Mione', he is rumbling my name in sleepy contentment. 'Mione', and I feel my name resonate through my back. I turn; the firelight is all but gone now, and traces the curves of his face with velvet precision. I memorise the softness of his face, the broad curves of his lips, the texture of his hair...

I smile, mystified, and settle down entwined in these arms that shift to hold me so gently.

My ginger one.

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A/N: Thanks everyone for reading so far! And also to Dizi for leaving such a lovely review. :) Feedback and comments always appreciated.


	4. Chapter 4: Classroom 1

If I were a fish, I muse as I drift through the crowded hallways, it would be so much easier to float on through without a bump or a jostle or the pattering pound of footsteps onstone. Easier than dealing with conversation that hums or bodies that press, or faces that twist and stretch as the train of emotion roars by, amplified a thousand times across a thousand bodies, seeping out like a heavy miasma. Oh, enough!

A sigh slips my lips, lost in the corridor of pre-class hysteria, and I'm calming again. It's after lunch time now, and the reprieve from dates and formulas was enough to make me itch for the silence and anonymity of a class lost in textbook analysis once more. Not to fear though, for the door is here and I'm in and fleeing down the back of the room before I can even register the calm of the tomes that line the walls. The air here is thick, too, but with anticipation of one who will pore through the pages and find...

Something. Something! It's always on the tip of my tongue, but never forms. Not greatness, exactly, I murmur to myself as I trail a fingertip across the fraying spines. It's not greatness, but perhaps unabashed dedication is the due for the honour of being trusted with the wisdom of ages here? The walls of this room are covered by the spines of written bodies both great and unknown, and gravity falls upon me as my worthiness here is sifted by such a standard.

Flashes of ginger creep through my mind, but once again I draw the curtain across my mind's eye. No more, I chant to myself as I take my place at the far back desk, nestled in the alcove. No more. No more.


	5. Chapter 5: Classroom 2

The voice at the front of the room carries on and on, and my fingers idly play with the creases carved into the wood of the desk that I'm sprawled across. They can trace an unbroken line from the inkwell to where my chin rests, I discover, and I caress the pathway over and over with a whisper-light fingernail. The ocean, I realise with a secret joy, it sounds like the ocean as it laps on the shore, and the tide as it sinks into the dunes...

I stop suddenly, scowling as the sweetness from a moment before is replaced by a cold rage that others in this class may have plundered the memory as it was written, fleetingly, on my face. I maneuver my face into neutrality once more, and softening the stiffness in my back, part eyelashes over the crook of my arm so that I can assess those sitting closest to me.

The ginger one sits and daydreams not two desks from my place at the back of the room,and I quickly school my face to emptiness once more, suddenly afraid that he can snatch secrets from my heart. Beyond him sits the dark one, the one who listens attentively and yet still cannot hear. Surely I must then be safe with them, and my shoulders relax a fraction, releasing tension that I must have started to carry again since first light. That only leaves the one sitting two seats in front of me, blonde hair spilling in waves, and I ponder the hunched back, the shoulders that rise and fall with each soft breath. He is asleep, I realise, and I push down a surge of envy.

The teacher's drone softens and peters out, followed quickly by the screeching bell and jostle of chairs and books and bags. The noise from the corridor swells and as the door swings closed it falls, giving way to silence once more. Vision comes to focus once more, and the room is empty, save myself and the one whose blond hair drapes and swirls with each sleeping breath. From the front of the room, looking down upon his face, the childlike reprieve is even more apparent.

His eyelashes flutter, and I find I've already spun on my heel and dashed most of the way up the second floor corridor, keen to be unseen by most and unnoticed by all as I find my eyes filling.


	6. Chapter 6: Common Room

By the time I push open the colossal doors of the library, I am weary and stumbling, and blink as I pass through the bitter smoke of the torches that line the corridor to the common room. The Lady gives way quickly, immersed in the game of chess she shares with her neighbour, and I pause for but a minute before I climb in through the draped tapestries. Warmth slips upon me instantly, and I sigh as I choose a nearby table on which to offload the books and bags and bottles of ink that fill my arms.

There are few left here still, I muse as I sink to my knees by the hearth, spreading out my things to begin to study again, just a few gently murmuring between themselves in these sleepy hours between night and day. They speak of friendships and fashions and current events that would be dwarfed by utter minutia, the silly little creatures, I smile as I gaze over them fondly. I pull my attention in and towards the quill I twirl in my fingers. Let them be so while they can. The firelight pops and dances across my papers, and I am content.


End file.
